


The Shape Of My Love For You

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Bleach
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-10
Updated: 2010-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:51:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The difference between what should have happened, and what Ryuuken allows to happen. Written July 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shape Of My Love For You

**[bastard]**

Okay, this is how is going to be, bastard:

You are going to grab your son and no matter how much he fights you are going to embrace him, so strong that he is not going to be able to even breath, and you are going to apologize and beg and then apologize again, and when you have done it so many times that the words feel like shards of broken glass inside your throat you are going to look into his eyes and start apologizing and begging again.

And then you are going to repeat the whole process.  


**[stupid]**

"Look, what you have done to your hands, stupid."

And he takes them in his, while Uryuu just stares, unable to reply, unable to turn away or even blink.

His touch is ginger, precise and anxious.

(you have forgotten what it feels like; real human touch, taking care not of strangers but of someone you love more than your own life, forgotten the metallic taste of fear from standing under his glance, how his words could break you in a moment, just like you broke him once; so you touch him so carefully that it seems like you´re not touching at all, feeling his scars barely with the tip of your fingers)

Uryuu´s fingers are even longer and thinner than his, his nails slightly bitten off and he has to remember his son is a teenager and there are many reasons for that. He has the hands of a pianist or a doctor, of anything that is precious and special; he looks down when his father runs a thumb over the scars, calculating their age, calculating the damage, he should not risk so much, he has the hands of a healer.

_Not a destroyer, damnit_, he murmurs but Uryuu doesn´t look up.

_Not a Quincy, damnit: you were supposed to be much more, much more than any of us -much more than me_, he bites these words like the night was cold and the anger his and not his son´s.  
  
**[son of a bitch]**

"Where are you staying?"

There is a calculated carelessness in his tone and he looks the other way, but he is too young to properly fake it and Ryuuken sees right through it. He sees it in the way he hangs his shoulders a bit too high, stressed, he can almost see the muscles stretching in an uncomfortable way and he wants to put his hand on Uryuu´s shoulder and tell him that he is going to hurt later, that he should take a hot shower later and let the water run for a long time. But there is no room for any of it and the boy just keeps walking, glance slanting to check that he is there--

-like Ryuuken is going to dissapear again, and like he cared about it.

"You can stay," searching for the keys to the flat, night cold and hands shaking and he grunts because he doesn´t want to give his father a moment to reply. "You are paying for it, anyway."

Uryuu throws the coat over the couch; everything is in darkness, he knows his way around the house, he doesn´t care if the other man doesn´t.

"I hate this," and that´s probably the first true thing the kid has said tonight.

Ryuuken sees his outline thanks to the light (moonlight, street-lights, city, sad, contaminated light) filtered through the blinds. He struggles to remain calm, steadying himself with on hand on the couch´s arm.

"I know."

"I hate you" with clenched teeth and clenched fist and not looking at him.

(he will never ask you why; why you left, why you were always so angry and sad with him, with the world, why you left, why you didn´t love him enough or why you loved him too much, why you have never called or written, and why you left, left him:

you want to ask if he remembers his mother´s face)

"I think I´ll get myself a hotel," he says quietly, so quietly that Uryuu stops being angry and his hatred is raw, unadulterated.

"Whatever."

The door closing arises no sensation in him, just muted anxiety, like he was suppossed to do something instead of staying just there, but he didn´t know what exactly, and didn´t want to know, either.

(you think it should have gone differently, you have imagined he would try to keep you, make an effort, protest your runaway, grab the sleeve of your coat and make you stay; you think about how that would have felt, how beutiful it would have been, his need and your atonement: you would have given him the world if he had just asked you to stay.

that is how it should have happened;

instead--

-you lie in your hotel bed and go through the new laws about prescriptions and saving money to the state and generic drugs, and all the words you´ve been waiting to say since the day you forgot the features of your son´s face crawl up your throat, sharp paws drawing blood until you are chocking, and you think about how long his hair has got and how much he resembles his mother and how much you hate him for that, and how much you love him for _everything else_)

This is what happens: Uryuu doesn´t even know which hotel he is staying in and the next morning he doesn´t even leave a note anyway.

(you wake up as empty as yesterday)  


**[idiot]**

"I won´t embarras you showing up in your graduation," but he is already embarrasing him, poised against the doorframe, waiting for him, like he had never dissapeared at all.

There is a gift-wrapped box in his hands and Uryuu is praying _no, please, no, pleaso don´t let him try to act fatherly_ just now.

"What´s this?"

He realizes his father has never offered any explanation, for leaving, for one hundred years of solitude in this cold and damp flat, for leaving, for making Uryuu think it was all his fault, for one-person meals, for leaving him, for leaving...

He has never asked, either.

(funny how the only thing that you regret not telling the boy is that what you regret most is not having watched him grow, the beautiful process that turned him into such a beautiful creature; how you hate yourself for missing all those first days of school, his first fist-fight, the first girl and the first broken heart, all the inadequacies, the quiet evenings where you two would sit by the tv and not watching it and he would need you tell him that everything was going to be fine someday; how you hate the life he has lived when you were not watching, and how you loathe you life because _he_ is not in it)

(and how you have missed him; even those times where you got mad at him because you caught him staring at his mother´s photographs when you had made sure that there were none left at home)

"I know you applied for medicine school."

His voice is warmer than Uryuu remembers ever hearing. But that´s not an answer and it gets him an eye-roll.

"Get gone, idiot." He shoves him away, more humour than intent. "I have to change for the ceremony."

The sun squares its way over them, it catches light in his hair and he is young, this is the last time he is going to be so young and he knows it; the world has turned orange-ish and soft-edged, and there is no room for any other feeling, any other impression, not even for resenting his father.

He smiles before closing the door.

(and maybe it´s the first time he has ever smiled to you)

It´s not after his father is long gone that he unwraps and opens the box and sees the stethoscopy inside.

 

[it´s alright that you hate me, because I love you still]


End file.
